The tubular knitted fabric in which at least three separately knitted tubular parts are joined includes gloves with tubular finger portions, socks with tubular finger portions, sweaters, and the like. When knitting a sweater using the flat knitting machine, a body is set up from a hem part, a sleeve is set up from a cuff part, and a tubular body (tubular part) and tubular sleeves (tubular parts) are joined at an armhole part.
When using the flat knitting machine, gloves and socks with tubular finger portions are normally set up from fingertips of each tubular finger portion as one tubular part. Each tubular finger portion is joined at the finger crotch. In the case of gloves, each tubular finger portion of little finger, ring finger, middle finger, and forefinger is knitted, and one tubular part is formed while joining the tubular finger portions to each other at the finger crotches to knit a four-finger body, and thereafter, the tubular finger portion for the thumb finger is knitted and the relevant tubular finger portion for the thumb finger and the four-finger body are combined to knit a five-finger body.
The knitting of gloves and socks may be carried out by knitting the tubular finger portions one at a time and joining the tubular finger portions to each other at the finger crotch (see e.g., Patent Document 2), or may be carried out by joining three tubular finger portions and knitting a three-finger body, and thereafter joining another one tubular finger portion to the three-finger body to knit a four-finger body, and joining the remaining tubular finger portion to the four-finger body to knit a five-finger body (see Patent Document 3). Furthermore, in the case of gloves, the thumb finger tubular finger portion is joined to the four-finger body, the position of joining to the four-finger body of the thumb finger tubular finger portion being a position closer to the center side of the palm so that the thumb finger tubular finger portion fits the shape of the human hand (see Patent Document 4).
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 10-266047
Patent Document 2: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2000-239950
Patent Document 3: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2000-220064
Patent Document 4: Pamphlet of International Publication No. 2004/020719